The U.S. Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory has appointed Peter Thornton as director of its Climate Change Science Institute, or CCSI, effective November 1, 2022.

Matthew Craig grew up eagerly exploring the forest patches and knee-high waterfalls just beyond his backyard in central Illinois’ corn belt. Today, that natural curiosity and the expertise he’s cultivated in biogeochemistry and ecology are focused on how carbon cycles in and out of soils, a process that can have tremendous impact on the Earth’s climate.

As Hurricane Fiona made landfall as a Category 1 storm in Puerto Rico on Sept. 18, 2022, some areas of the island were inundated with nearly 30 inches of rain, and power to hundreds of thousands of homes was knocked out. Only 10 days later, Hurricane Ian, a Category 4 storm and one of the strongest and most damaging storms on record, landed in Lee County, Florida, leveling homes and flooding cities before moving up the coast and making landfall again as a Category 1 storm in South Carolina.

Growing up in Brazil, Oak Ridge National Laboratory materials scientist Denise Antunes da Silva remembers ceramic tiles being as common as the coffee beans the country is famous for growing and exporting. The colorful tiles dotted walkways and served as the building blocks for residential and commercial construction. She didn’t think much about how the tiles were produced, however, until years later while pursuing a degree in materials science and engineering.

Sheng Dai, a Corporate Fellow and section head at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory, has been selected by the DOE Office of Science as a 2023 Distinguished Scientist Fellow. The competitive award recognizes exceptional scientists from the national laboratories with strong records of academic and university collaborations. The opportunity provides each fellow with $1 million over three years to support activities that develop, sustain and promote scientific and academic excellence in Office of Science research.